So as it’s not a huge secret anymore, I flew back into Chicago for the holidays. After some delays and such I finally touched down at O’hare just at midnight xmas eve/xmas morning. It was awesome having Christmas with the family and seeing every one over the past few days. Too much food and WAY too much alcohol has been consumed…and it’s only been 3 days…

Last minute xmas dinner! It was yummy indeed

Last night grabbed some Korean BBQ with the TF folk…this was the aftermath:

Plenty of soju was had as well

After, we all headed to Phil’s place and had even more to drink. I recall jumping into a ice cold indoor pool holding the hand of Crab, who was wearing a bear suit…..yea

Ok so I finally have some time to update whats been going on with the car. The week before the event was sorta crazy, as I had to wait for payday to be sure I wasn’t living on ramen and water for the weeks following the event. So the weekend before the event I was able to take the car over to Masa at JMCS and get a bunch of much needed work done. I got the car up and got to work on the front. GT-1 tension rods and Ikeya Formula tie rods.

For the rear, tossed on Cusco rear upper arms and GT-1’s toe arms. In this shot you can also see the GT-1 rigid diff bushings. Together with the Stance subframe collars the rear is really nice and solid now. I also spent a good amount of time hammering the fenders lips flat in both the front and rear.

While I was getting all these things on, Masa changed the engine oil as well as the diff fluid. He also took the new Goodyear Revspec RS-02 over to the local tire shop to have the put on the front Model5. The 225/40 Yokohama DNA GP (ES100) that were on the front, I threw on the 10j rears in hopes being able to get rid of the massive amounts of camber the rear had after putting the car on the ground. After I got that all taken care of I actually found time to get the car over for an alignment.

For whatever reason they said they were not able to get anything less than -3.3 degrees of rear camber from the Cusco arms…I have a feeling they are just playing it safe. My car isn’t THAT low and there should be no problem getting the rear to around -2 or so…or so I think!? Front caster is also set at +6.6 despite asking for +7, again I was told +6.6 was the most they could do…so at this point I just assume they don’t know wtf they are doing. That coupled with the fact that all the arms came loose a day after the alignment was done… Anyways, I also tossed a 30mm spacer on the Nardi. After throwing in the Bride Zieg3 I felt a bit far from the wheel since the Low Max rail really sits low and allows me to move the seat back a good amount while still keeping my legs in the perfect position.

At any rate, like I posted before, took it to Meihan and had some good times. The car is likely to sit for awhile as I am extremely low in the funds department..ouch

I’ve been wanting to get a bike, mainly to run errands around town that a bit to far to walk but a tad too close to drive. But I can’t just roll on a normal thing…no way no how. So I may try and build and/or buy something cool. I’ve been looking around on ratrodbikes for some ideas. Here are a few of my favorites.

Obviously some of the more extreme ones are less than practical, but this is the style I’ll be shooting for.

So, as I said I was able to get to Meihan this past weekend, for the Ziek free run event. I’ve added all the pics I took to Flickr, and you can check then all out, here. For the 1st time out at the track in the car I was fairly happy with how the car felt and how I drove. As I suspected I am still not totally used to right-hand drive use of the e-brake. The timing with my left hand, and foot is still off and I have to think too hard to make it happen. My right hand also doesn’t want to control the wheel well at all while my left is using the e-brake.

Towards the end of the day however, I seemed to start getting fairly used to it, but still lacked the confidence to try a 3rd gear clutch kick at the wall in the 1st corner that would need me to use the e-brake to elongate the drift out wide in position for the clip. Driving with Masa (the white 86 coupe) was really fun, and it helped having the pressure of him behind me.

For the most part the day went without incident. Towards the end of the 2nd heat of the morning the blow off valve recirculation pipe blew off, ending the heat for me but that was a quick fix. In the last heat of the afternoon I threw on the Model 5s but after just 2 laps the old tires delaminated, ending my day since I needed the remaining tire on the CR Kai to get home on. I did later find out that, it wasn’t just my imagination that the rear of the car was feeling progressively “loose” every lap, when I got home I noticed that almost all of the pillow arms that had just been adjusted getting an alignment the day prior had become loose and had changed their lengths….joy!

But in all, it was an awesome 1st track event. Money allowing I am going to try and get back this month, or possibly hit up Suzuka Twin for a few hours on a weekday once I am on winter break. I also need to grab some more action shots and video from friends, so one I do I’ll be sure to toss it all up here. But again be sure to check out all my shots, here.

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